~ A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you … John 13:34

How many women were at the foot of the Cross?

Reading the Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion reminds me of one the pieces of evidence which convinces me that they are genuine – they fail to agree on simple facts – in this instance, who was at the foot of the Cross.

Let us begin with St Matthew’s account:

many women … who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee27:55-56

St Mark tells us that there were:

women … among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome15:40

St Luke, who we know gathered all the information that he could, wrote about ‘the women who had followed him from Galilee’ 23:49, whilst St John tells us that they were :’his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene’19:25.

Is John referring to three or four women? My own view is that he is referring to four. Apart from anything else, it rids us of the necessity of arguing that The Virgin Mary’s sister was also called Mary. In a piece I wrote here last year I gave reasons for suggesting that “Mary of Clopas’ was the mother of James the younger and Joses, who are described elsewhere in the New Testament as the ‘brothers’ of Jesus; indeed, ‘Joses’, or Jude, so identifies himself in his epistle. If Mary of Clopas was, as suggested, the wife of Cleophas (or Alpheus) who was the brother of St Joseph, then it would have been natural enough for her to have been at the foot of the Cross, and for her sons to have been disciples. I don’t much want to get drawn into another fruitless discussion on the meaning of the word ‘adelphoi’ which, as I have shown elsewhere, does not necessarily mean uterine brother, and Joseph Richardson has some well-researched posts here which do the job better than I could, but simply cite it here in evidence of the supposition that ‘Mary of Clopas’ in St John, and the ‘Mary the mother of James and Joseph’ were the same person. If ‘Salome’ was, as I have suggested, the ‘mother of the sons of Zebedee’ and the sister of the Virgin Mary, we can then reconcile the four accounts: at the foot of the Cross were the Virgin Mary and her sister, Salome, and her sister in law, Mary, along with Mary Magdalen.

This suggests that Jesus’ family circle was a close one, and that its female members stood with him to the end – and it would be the same group, minus his mother, who would go to the tomb and find that far from it being the end, it was the beginning. It also reminds us of something easily forgotten – the importance of the role played by women in the church from its beginning.

Post navigation

12 thoughts on “How many women were at the foot of the Cross?”

Of course, the fact that St. Matthew refers to “many women” means that these identifications need not be true and yet all accounts could be true. If Salome was not the mother of Zebedee’s sons (I’m not arguing she isn’t), then there could have been five women: the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, her sister Salome, Mary of Clopas, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons. And perhaps there were even more. On this point, it’s actually hard to suggest that any of the authors intended their list to be exhaustive, and thus hard to fabricate a narrative contradiction, as opposed to a different narrative selection.

Very true. For me, the interest lies in it possibly showing the closeness of Jesus’ family circle. In the Western tradition he has tended to be picked up and portrayed almost as an heroic lone individual; but in the original context I doubt that was the case.

The real question is “how many women and evidence of leadership” have been purged from primary texts to justify their exclusion as clergy by some denominations per omitting scriptural and historical reference by redaction to their leadership roles in the early centuries esp non inclusion of Book of Thecla in canon which was widely used and certainly has more legitimacy than Revelation in my opinion. Yes, I am an Elaine Pagels follower.

Having read ‘Thecla’, Carl, I can see why no one considered it canonical, but there is nothing wrong with it per se; it is an example of the many stories early Christians liked to hear. I think Prof Pagels, like Prof Ehrman, has an agenda, and tend to go for Charles Hill myself, who seems more in tune with traditional teaching.

On the women issue, we need I think to take care. I have no doubt that there is an issue here, but am not sure it is the one twentieth century feminists put there,

I think that the claims that women have been sanitized out of early scripture and church history are valid. But I agree it has little to due with much of the secular fascist/feminism movement. It is more of an effort that Christian women are asking for equality in ordination and leadership not the extremism of feminism. On the other hand some aspects of feminism are one’s we can certainly support such as equal pay, increased protection from domestic violence and guarantees that the collection of child support as divorced single mothers be enforced more stridently.

iVE NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT WHO WAS AT THE CRUCIFICTION. wE KNOW GOOD BROTHER jOHN WAS THERE AND jESUS MOTHER. Jesus mother knew Jesus had it coming if he kept going around town acting like he was god. Anyway, they all stood back because the roman soldiers stood guard. Our beloved CC likes to portray Mary as standing rite next to Jesus all holy looking and all. Its just a ruse to keep people praying to her. We like to hold Mary up as redeemer,.so we will say anything. but dont tell the prots that.